The thread for space cadets!

[uppi]

The sources hope that in 7 years time that more meaningful research can be done, and that even a single major breakthrough can help justifiy (politically) the cost of keeping the station.

Does anyone know whether there are any interesting experiments lined up for the ISS, capable of producing a real breakthrough? Anything fitting into the timeframe until 2020 would have to be already in planning. Hoping for a breakthrough is nice, but those don't come from nowhere.

I know of the AMS experiment, which could produce a breakthrough if it is lucky and detects something unexpected. Anything else?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

None that I am aware of Uppi. I think they want to do R&D into space manufacturing but I am not aware of any firm proposals or missions.

 

[Winner]

Oh, and btw, this trajectory means they will pass Mars on its night side.

I know They better bring a huge spotlight...

Maybe they should just forget about Mars and do a flyby of Venus instead. It's quicker, and I think you even see something of the dayside of the planet (well, you of course only see the clouds, but the view should be nice nevertheless).

NASA actually made a rather detailed plans for doing just that in the 1970s. A guy on YouTube re-created the mission in Orbiter:


Link to video.

This isn't the kind of thing you should ask undergrads to do, nor should you expect them to be technically capable of pulling it off.

Well, surely they'd have it checked by professionals at NASA or elsewhere. It seems to me that they're looking for a cost-effective way of doing the "boring" bulk of the work, the drudgery if you will.

But why Tito can't part with a few hundred thousand of his dollars to actually pay people to do it, that's beyond me. I guess he expects the students to be inspired by the lack of monetary reward? I wonder how Apollo would have gone if it was based on the same philosophy...

Does anyone know whether there are any interesting experiments lined up for the ISS, capable of producing a real breakthrough? Anything fitting into the timeframe until 2020 would have to be already in planning. Hoping for a breakthrough is nice, but those don't come from nowhere.

I've read an article that ESA plans to send up a metallurgic laboratory to test thousands of possible alloys, some of which may show interesting properties if produced in zero-g. How that project is going, I have no idea; it's been some time since I've read about it.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Well, surely they'd have it checked by professionals at NASA or elsewhere. It seems to me that they're looking for a cost-effective way of doing the "boring" bulk of the work, the drudgery if you will.

Yeah, I'm sure they're going to have it all checked by professionals. However, (and I may have misread the article) it seems to me they are actually going to let the student teams do the 'exciting' stuff and make NASA do the 'boring' stuff. What I mean is they are going to let the student teams come up with the broad strokes of the architectures (use this system versus this system, these types of components versus other types) and then have NASA or professionals check on things and make sure it all works out. I also suspect that $10k prize is going to essentially be a grant for the student teams to do more fact-checking and serious engineering.

The biggest problem I see with this approach (and I could be wrong about the whole thing) is that if you are letting unfunded student teams with basically zero experience on manned programs work on the architecture of the program you could very well wind up with very flawed assumptions that are built-in to the design and thus hard to root out. Obviously, they are going to pick the best designed architecture to begin with, but it could still be a big problem and lead to a lot of wasted effort and time when time is what they can't afford to waste.

But why Tito can't part with a few hundred thousand of his dollars to actually pay people to do it, that's beyond me. I guess he expects the students to be inspired by the lack of monetary reward? I wonder how Apollo would have gone if it was based on the same philosophy...

Yeah, it's a bit silly because students in the US in this field don't do unpaid internships very often. While this can be looked at more akin to a University Design Team (which don't pay students), the crucial difference is that University Design Teams are funded. You just can't reasonably expect for teams to work at a net loss, draining away resources from other projects, to compete toward something they have a slim chance of winning. Then factor in that $10k is chump change in the aerospace field, then factor in the possibility that Tito is going to expect that the winning team will use some or all of that $10k to do more research for this project and the whole thing seems like a bad deal for the students. I certainly wouldn't recommend this competition for our design teams at my University.

Cool picture from a recent Russian spacewalk at the ISS:

They were laying cables and getting things ready at the ISS to accept a new Russian science module, so maybe there is hope some serious science will get done there in the near future.

 

[uppi]

None that I am aware of Uppi. I think they want to do R&D into space manufacturing but I am not aware of any firm proposals or missions.

I think, space manufacturing will only take off if:
1) Extraterrestrial resources are exploited and used for extraterrestrial purposes. Once the infrastructure is there, it might be cheaper to construct a spaceship in space with materials mined in space and thus save the energy cost of the trip down to earth and back up again. But there would be a huge overhead, so this would require space travel on a large scale.

2) There is something that can only be manufactured in extended periods of microgravity, can be safely returned back to earth and its properties are so unique, that it is they justify the extra costs of manufacturing it in space. At the current cost, the benefits would have to be quite huge, so not some 10% effect.

Considering the current budgets, #1 is not going to happen during the lifetime of the ISS. For #2, there is no evidence that such a thing exists. I could imagine a few things that would meet the criteria (high-Tc superconductors, extremely large carbon structures like nanotubes or graphene sheets), but there is nothing which can clearly only ever be manufactured in microgravity.

So hoping for a breakthrough here that would convince people to release more funds for the ISS seems to be quite optimistic.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence as far as exotic materials. We just don't know.

I don't disagree that the hope that new research will produce breakthroughs is overly optimistic. I don't see it in the cards either.

As to your point#1, that's true though it assumes roughly stagnant launch costs and the absence of a robust infrastructure in outer space. While both low launch costs and robust infrastructure are a long way off, if we ever have either or both, there's not much reason that space resources will only be utilized in space. It's a very tall order to get those things, naturally.

 

[Winner]

NASA wants to send a 3D printer to the ISS

-> I don't really have anything to say except "cool, let's try it."

---

As for how the ISS should be utilized, I maintain that the main purpose of the station is to contribute to the research that will enable 'deep space' (i.e. beyond Earth's magnetosphere) travel for humans. It should serve as a testbed for various technologies associated with this aim.

Other science projects are of course a plus, but they shouldn't be seen as the rationale behind building and operating the station.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Is there any progress on research on the eyeball distortion problem associated with manned space flight?

 

[Winner]

Is there any progress on research on the eyeball distortion problem associated with manned space flight?

Haven't read anything about it recently. Maybe it was another in the line of overblown dangers.

 

[Winner]

BTW, I was inspired by KSP and PlutonianEmpire's post a few weeks back to think about a hypothetical scenario of Earth having two moons.

In addition to our normal Moon, we also have a much smaller one, say ~1500 km diameter, orbiting near the edge of Earth's Hill's sphere, say, about 900,000 km. This 2nd moon is locked in an orbital resonance with our primary Moon. However, its inclination and appearance suggests it is a foreign body, possibly captured by the Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment period about 4 billion years ago.

From the Earth, the 2nd moon appears pretty small, about 1/5th the Moon's apparent size in the sky.

Assuming it doesn't butterfly away humanity (as it probably would) and there was a space race as in our timeline's 1960s, which of the two moons would we visit first?

 

[uppi]

Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence as far as exotic materials. We just don't know.

Sure. But without any evidence that such research is more promising in space than on earth, the added complications of doing the research in space will most likely result in a lower output. You might always get lucky, but if I had to allocate a limited budget for exotic materials search, I would not spend too much on research in space.

As to your point#1, that's true though it assumes roughly stagnant launch costs and the absence of a robust infrastructure in outer space. While both low launch costs and robust infrastructure are a long way off, if we ever have either or both, there's not much reason that space resources will only be utilized in space. It's a very tall order to get those things, naturally.

Once they get above the threshold where both are viable, mining in space and manufacturing in space would reinforce each other, even when most of the resources are used on earth. But in my opinion, we still have a long way to go until we reach that threshold.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Sure. But without any evidence that such research is more promising in space than on earth, the added complications of doing the research in space will most likely result in a lower output. You might always get lucky, but if I had to allocate a limited budget for exotic materials search, I would not spend too much on research in space.

But I'm saying you don't know that, no one does. Point being that there really is no way to simulate zero-gee on Earth, so you either have no production of materials and very little study (even theoretical study) of said materials or you have some production and some study, however limited it may be by the cost. That's the crux of the issue: sure, it's hard to do at the moment, but it's the only way to do it. And since there's only one way to do it (in space) then neither of us can say whether or not it's worth the cost to figure out because we don't know. There very well could be super materials that can only be created in space, there may not be. But it's worth investigating for sure and once you have a reasonable assurance that you've found out either way, then you can talk about the utility of mass producing the materials.

Once they get above the threshold where both are viable, mining in space and manufacturing in space would reinforce each other, even when most of the resources are used on earth. But in my opinion, we still have a long way to go until we reach that threshold.

I think it will be a long way too, though I am optimistic.

 

[uppi]

But I'm saying you don't know that, no one does. Point being that there really is no way to simulate zero-gee on Earth, so you either have no production of materials and very little study (even theoretical study) of said materials or you have some production and some study, however limited it may be by the cost. That's the crux of the issue: sure, it's hard to do at the moment, but it's the only way to do it. And since there's only one way to do it (in space) then neither of us can say whether or not it's worth the cost to figure out because we don't know. There very well could be super materials that can only be created in space, there may not be. But it's worth investigating for sure and once you have a reasonable assurance that you've found out either way, then you can talk about the utility of mass producing the materials.

I don't know how many new materials we can or cannot discover in space, but I can make an argument on likelihood: If I have no theory making predictions, there is no reason to assume that an excessive amount of new materials are hiding in the microgravity subspace of the parameter space. And going to space does make exploring other parameters (pressure, heating or cooling to extreme temperatures) much harder and adds additional sources of errors (like increased radiation). On earth you can do many more experiments in much less time with less turnaround than you can in space with the same amount of resources. So unless there is a reason to assume, that experiments in space have a much larger chance of success, the expected rate of discoveries is going to be much higher on earth.

If a few seconds are enough, you can achieve zero-g on earth, so for some things you don't even need to go into space. Experiments taking longer than that will of course need to go to space. But I have to strongly object to your statement that little theoretical study is done. In fact, I would say that a huge part of all theoretical studies done in material research is done while assuming an environment without gravity. And it is easy to see why: Adding gravity to a calculation takes effort, it is going to make the calculation more complicated, it breaks symmetries and theorists hate all that. Gravity is a very weak force, so most of the time you can safely set g to zero and get rid of those complications. Gravity is only added in, when someone notices that it does play a role after all. Usually this is noticed by the experimentalists, who all too often discover that the beautiful model of the theorists doesn't work, because they neglected some supposedly small effect. If that effect is gravity, then the obvious answer would be to go into space. But then you have an argument why it should work better in space and my arguments don't apply.

I am not saying we shouldn't do it. And if there is any indication why something should work in space that doesn't work on earth, by all means, go for it. But for shot-in-the-dark, lets-mix-stuff-and-see-what-happens experiments space is rather unimportant when it comes to discovering new exciting materials, just because the amount of experiments you can do is very limited.

At least for the moment. This might change if space infrastructure develops to a point, where any random scientist could easily book lab time in space on short notice to try out his or her random crazy idea. But again, that it still a long way to go.

 

[Winner]

Another India's GSLV rocket launch scrubbed

-> Let this be a reminder that building and testing a successful launch vehicle is not trivial even today, when technically you are only doing what others have done before.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I had an interesting homework assignment today in my Orbital Dynamics course. On top of the usual mathematical problems, we were also asked the following:

Recently, much debate has ensued regarding NASA's human spaceflight goals and plans. NASA is currently planning to retrieve a small asteroid and return it to cislunar space. Some republican politicians are strongly advocating that humans return to the Moon instead. Others, including Buzz Aldrin, are promoting a human mission to Mars. Given that NASA is a publically-funded entity from U.S. tax dollars, what would you do if it was your decision to make? Defend your position. Could your plan be realistically implemented in today's political, economic, and technological environments?

I just finished writing my response (he asked it to be 2-3 pages, and it comes in at roughly 2.5) and I thought I'd post it here before I move on to other homework. Now before everyone rolls their eyes at the blatantly nationalistic tenor of my paper, keep in mind that's implicitly the point of the thing.

If I were in position to make a decision on the future plans of NASA, I would double-down on the current plan to capture an asteroid and return it to cislunar space. It is important to note that I do not advocated that this plan is necessarily the best from a technical perspective. Instead I believe that another reversal or major change to the mission architecture would be a disaster for NASA. Consider the delays and multiple overruns (both temporally and fiscally) of the Constellation program, which was underfunded from the outset and later canceled. That program was then replaced by the Space Launch System, which in turn has been underfunded and the object of multiple attacks from its beginning.

At this point, changing the mission objectives yet again would be a major setback and it’s one I don’t think NASA is well positioned to withstand. Just changing the objective to a lunar landing (and setting up a lunar base eventually) will require major mission architecture changes in and of itself. A lander will have to be designed, built and tested, as will special space suits to operate in the moon’s gravity (astronauts at asteroids face effectively zero gee loads and can therefore use very similar suits to those used in orbit), as will surface transportation vehicles and of course the lunar base itself. What’s even worse is that the House of Representatives proposal does not fund the proposed lunar landing and lunar base scheme presently. Instead, the funding is to be allocated if and when funding is slashed from other budgets, whereas the current SLS/Asteroid Mission has funding that is independent of the constraint that it come from shuffling (in essence) funds between other Federal departments and programs.

Thus, the proposed lunar landing scheme sets up a very dangerous precedent for both NASA and for the general advancement of manned space exploration in the United States. At issue is whether or not to place the future of NASA and its objectives into a zero-sum equation wherein it must compete with and take funding from other national objectives. NASA simply cannot survive a fight between itself and say, TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families; colloquially called food stamps) or Medicare or the military, etc. Further, I posit that this attempt really downgrades NASA as a national priority; it complete degrades the importance of the program and our national future in outer space to ‘just another Federal program’. It is not and should not be treated as such as it has always been a vital component of our national economy and the projection of American power and prestige.

Because of these considerations, I would not present major changes to NASA’s current plans. I feel strongly that the Agency can’t really ‘take’, for lack of a better word, more political meddling in their plans. Instead, I would double-down on NASA’s current plans and missions. I think NASA is one of the few government programs whose popular support doesn’t break down on clear party-line affiliations. It may not be well loved by the general public, but it isn’t actively despised like the NSA or the TSA or the EPA, et al. In fact, there is some evidence that the public at large is very interested in NASA and its missions – one need only look at the excitement surrounding the ‘Seven Minutes of Terror’ video about the Curiosity rover, the popularity of pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope or the high number of quality science and Science Fiction movies and televisions shows that pervade our popular culture. The biggest problem NASA faces in rallying popular support is that they do a terrible job of promoting themselves and they have no ‘champion’ pushing their agenda.

So if I were in charge, I would pull a Kennedy and appeal to the nation with stirring speeches about our national future in space and NASA’s vital part of that future. I would propose that NASA’s current plans be expanded (but not drastically changed, i.e. more missions, not different missions) and that more funds be allocated to the Agency. I would also set clear timetables on the order of a decade, instead of merely saying, ‘in the 2030’s’. Firm deadlines spur action, lax ones the opposite. It is also important that these deadlines be set so that the missions are already well underway before a major shift in the political landscape can occur (such as a presidential election) and jeopardize them. Ten years is excellent in this regard because if announced early in a President’s term, even if there is a change of hands of the Presidency in 4 or 8 years, strong momentum has been built up to hopefully resist drastic, immediate changes.

I would push this as a way to expand the national economy by creating new technologies (and thus, ultimately, jobs) to tackle the problems presented by the challenge of grabbing an asteroid. I would argue that the current NASA commercial programs (COTS, CCDev and CCP) are important bridges to private industry that will allow it to overcome the enormous barriers to entry into the space market. These programs are vital so that private industry can pursue new commercial endeavors in space and thus the expansion of these programs are in our national economic interest.

I would remind people that the United States is not the only country active in outer space and that we really do face the specter of being eclipsed by the Chinese space program or others. We are finally, as a species, moving to the point where we have the means to expand ourselves beyond our planet of origin and at this instant, the momentum is gathering politically, technologically, socially and economically to make this happen with or without the United States. So now we have to choose: do we push our values and society outward, or do we turn inward and let events unfold outside of our influence?

Whether or not this could be realistically implemented in today’s political climate is an interesting question. I actually think it could be done, because regardless of what one thinks of President Obama, one of the things that he is universally acknowledged at excelling at is giving stirring speeches. I think if he wished, he could do just as I suggested and push NASA’s agenda to the forefront of American society with an appeal to the public. Getting the Congress to play ball would be difficult, but I don’t think it would be an insurmountable challenge because, as I said before, NASA isn’t a target of much political ire and can be used as a focal point for American power, industry and prestige – something that people on both sides of the political spectrum are interested in.

Economically and technologically, the program(s) are on much firmer ground. We clearly have the technical means to do these things because of our past and current achievements from lunar landings to building the ISS. NASA doesn’t cost the taxpayer much (less than a half cent of every tax dollar) and used to cost much more in the heyday of the Apollo program without ill effects to the American economy. There’s also a very strong argument to be made that NASA has paid enormous dividends back to the public in the technologies and entire industries (Satellite TV, GPS networks, weather satellites, and so on) that it has directly and indirectly created or enabled.

That’s the argument I’d make to the American people to support NASA’s current missions. I would not accept that NASA be forced to fight it out, Enter the Thunderdome-style, with other agencies for public funding and would veto any such attempts. I would try and make the people and by extension, the Congress, recognize that NASA is one of our most vital priorities and that it should be adequately funded and placed above the day-to-day political horse trading that it is currently falling victim to. It may be quaint to suggest that people will rally around NASA and set aside political infighting to make that happen. Unfortunately, I don’t see any other way of realistically keeping NASA’s objectives on track. There are nearly-infinite different options from a technical perspective of how to accomplish NASA’s goals but there are much fewer politically viable ways to get things done. I believe that the path that I’ve set out is one of those few workable solutions; to keep the goals but expand the base of popular support for the program.

What do you all think? Am I way off? Care to answer the question my professor posed yourself?

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Only thing I can come up with is to have you hire a grammar nazi. Because I see a few errors.

Also, spell-check.

As for the assignment, a few pages back, Winner lamented our society's appetite for science fiction eye candy rather than real world current space endeavors. I brought up that it was because of our society's instant gratification culture. Perhaps you could bring something up about combating that?

 

[uppi]

So if I were in charge, I would pull a Kennedy and appeal to the nation with stirring speeches about our national future in space and NASA’s vital part of that future. I would propose that NASA’s current plans be expanded (but not drastically changed, i.e. more missions, not different missions) and that more funds be allocated to the Agency. I would also set clear timetables on the order of a decade, instead of merely saying, ‘in the 2030’s’. Firm deadlines spur action, lax ones the opposite. It is also important that these deadlines be set so that the missions are already well underway before a major shift in the political landscape can occur (such as a presidential election) and jeopardize them. Ten years is excellent in this regard because if announced early in a President’s term, even if there is a change of hands of the Presidency in 4 or 8 years, strong momentum has been built up to hopefully resist drastic, immediate changes.

[...]

I think if he wished, he could do just as I suggested and push NASA’s agenda to the forefront of American society with an appeal to the public.

You propose to expand NASA's current plans, but in my opinion you stay to vague on where that expansion is supposed to be headed. If you want to excite the public, you need a vision where NASA is headed, something that the people can get behind. If you want NASA's agenda at the forefront of public society, there needs to be a clear NASA agenda first (which is of course difficult to formulate when politicians meddle with NASA all the time).

You can rely on Obama giving rousing speeches, but you have to give him a little more to work with than (forgive me the oversimplification): "We need to do space stuff,because...space!!!" I would add a short description in which direction NASA should be heading in the near future. What do you want to achieve?

Unfortunately, right now it is too late in the night for me to think about what my vision would be.

 

[Winner]

Well, my comments in brief:

1) First and foremost, identify what the purpose of the space programme is. Until that has been boiled down to a few clear points that can be sold to the public through a political process, all other discussion is rather moot. This could be seen as a "strategic" level of analysis, i.e. what is the overall objective. Why we are doing this. What is the benefit? How will this help us in the long term? And are any of these claims firmly based in reality, or have we just conjured them up to keep our jobs safe? Forgive for using the military analogy, but I can think of no better way to express what I mean:

One might argue that Nazi Germany lost WW2 not because of its lower resource base, manpower, totalitarian system or any number of other reasons, but because of the lack of overarching, fixed strategic goals. In fact, German strategy oscillated between a number of strategic goals which caused its limited resources to be spread thin. Ultimately, by trying to accomplish everything at the same time, Germany failed in everything at the same time.

If Hitler had been a bit saner, he'd always have focused on one particular goal and stuck to it until it had been accomplished. He would not have allowed himself to be distracted by "nice-to-have" options. Fortunately for Europe and the world, he was a moron and he lost.

Back to the (human spaceflight part of) space programme - like the German military, it's constantly being redirected to wildly different goals, which in the end assures that nothing at all is accomplished. From capturing Moscow returning to the Moon to seizing the Caucasus going to an asteroid to occupying Stalingrad going to Mars. No doubt, if winter clothing funds had been provided along with a firm strategic direction, NASA would have already been in Moscow back on the Moon, perhaps building a base and learning how to produce oil for the Reich warmachine propellant for transport to low-Earth orbit. By changing the strategic direction of the invasion of the USSR away from the Moon, Hitler Obama ensured that the program would be completely derailed, with a decade of planning and a stable bipartisan support of that goal squandered in a stroke of a pen. Even worse, he didn't even replace it with another overall strategic plan of his own, just a nebulous "we might do this and that" joke-of-a-plan called the "flexible path" (back to Berlin).

2) Only when you identify what you want to do and why, you choose the method of accomplishing the goal. This is the "tactical" level of analysis. I separate the two because they often get mixed up; people endlessly argue about how to do this and that in space, that they forget about why they want to do that in the first place. Whether you go back to the Moon in a two-stage chemical lander or a you lower yourself on a kevlar string from L2 is irrelevant from the strategic point of view.

---

Now, what I would do, practically:

1) Fire Bolden and all the people he brought to NASA, put all current plans on hold, and start with a clean sheet.
2) Assemble a panel of leading spaceflight experts, representatives of the relevant committees of Congress from both parties, heads of relevant NASA centres, space entrepreneurs, representatives of space advocacy groups, leaders of other space agencies (ESA, the Russians, Indians, Japanese, even the Chinese), scientists, futurists, economists, and other relevant people, and have them formulate several STRATEGIC approaches for human spaceflight in the coming decades. These might include the well-known Moon first versus Mars first options, the "screw planets, Asteroids!" option, and others.
3) Evaluate the proposed options in terms of affordability, pay-offs, impact on the economy and education, and the potential for international cooperation. The best option would be adopted and translated into a binding mandate, hopefully enjoying bipartisan support. A "kill-switch" would be incorporated ensuring that if major changes are made to the programme that would derail it from its strategic objective, the programme would automatically be cancelled.
4) Market the plan. Explain it to the public - why we are doing it, why is it worth your tax money, how will this benefit the nation and mankind at large in the future.
5) Stick to it.

 

[Winner]

A bit of American space alarmism, for entertainment purposes:

Is China's Space Program Shaping a Celestial Empire?
by Leonard David, SPACE.com’s Space Insider Columnist

China is pressing forward on its human space exploration plans, intent on establishing an international space station and, experts say, harnessing the technological muscle to hurl its astronauts to the moon.

Highlighting China's intent, the country is working with the United Nations to stage a major workshop on human space technology, to be held Sept. 16-20 in Beijing.

The meeting is organized jointly by the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs and the China Manned Space Agency, co-organized by the International Academy of Astronautics and hosted by the China Manned Space Agency.


The five-day international workshop will bring together senior experts, professionals and decision-makers from public sectors, academia and industry worldwide. [See photos from China's Shenzhou 10 space mission]

On the agenda, the workshop aims to contribute to "establishing institutional capacity in microgravity science and enhancing international cooperation in human space exploration as a global endeavor," according to meeting documents.


Share and exchange information

"With such a strong partner as China, I am convinced that this workshop will be extraordinary and interesting, and valuable results will be achieved for the whole space community," Mazlan Othman, director general of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, said in a statement.

The workshop "will provide great opportunities for space colleagues from the world to share and exchange information and ideas on human space exploration activities. I believe those exchanges will definitely enhance the friendship among us and the international cooperation in the endeavor," Zhaoyao Wang, director general of the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), said in a statement.

Zhaoyao said that, since its establishment in 1992, the CMSA has organized 11 flight missions and sent 10 Chinese astronauts into outer space to bolster the nation's human space exploration activities.

China's first space traveler, Yang Liwei, was sent into orbit in October 2003, making China the third nation — after Russia and the United States — to launch astronauts to space using its own vehicles.

"The year 2013 marks the 10th anniversary of China's manned space flight mission," Zhaoyao said. "These achievements are crucial steps towards fulfilling China's plans of building a manned space station around the year 2020, which would benefit the world by promoting international cooperation in the utilization of the station for the peaceful exploration and use of outer space."

Progress…faster than expected

"My top line is that the Chinese are moving ahead aggressively on a human exploration program," said Laurence Young, Apollo program professor of astronautics and professor of health sciences and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Young told SPACE.com that China is progressing toward robotic lunar exploration and eventually human moon exploration.

In gauging China's human space exploration campaign, Young said "they have laid out what appears to be a more than reasonable, but nevertheless optimistic plan."

From single-piloted missions to multiple crews, space walking, "everything they have been touting they have, in fact, made progress on," Young said. "To many of us, it has been faster than we might have expected."

Distinctive Chinese program

Some experts have criticized China's rockets and spacecraft as simply blowing dust off Russia's Soyuz design. But Young disagreed, saying, "They are wrong." China has taken the best of what they've imported from the Russians, learned from America and the European Space Agency, he said, "and are building a distinctive Chinese program."

Going to the moon is not easy, Young said. "We have to give the Chinese credit for taking on those hard problems. Whether they will be successful or not remains to be seen. But they are serious about it," he said.

A leading expert in space biomedical research and artificial gravity, Young has been invited to take part in an International Forum for Space Life Science and Space Biotechnology, to be held Sept. 24 in Beijing.

At the forum, China's strategic plan for life science, biotechnology and international cooperation, geared to the country's space station, is to be rolled out.

"Around 2020, China is going to build its own space station and to carry out space science research of larger scale," said Yidong Gu, an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and leader of the science planning group for China's space station.

Unmistakable warning signs

Writing for the journal Foreign Policy this month, John Hickman, a professor of political science at Berry College in Georgia, said there "are unmistakable warning signs that China may surpass the United States and Russia to become the world's pre-eminent spacefaring power."

Hickman said China's recent piloted space mission, Shenzhou 10, "may determine the terms under which the spacefaring powers compete on the final frontier. By the way, he said that one of many ancient names for China is Tianchao — the Celestial Empire. Shenzhou 10 may be pointing the way toward its creation," he said.

"For Washington to continue to ignore Beijing's resolute space policy doesn't mean there is no space race; it means that Beijing wins by default," he said.

"Saying that it takes two to tango is a poor excuse for losing because international space politics isn't a tango. Instead, it is a conga line," Hickman told SPACE.com.

"One of the underlying problems in U.S. space policy-making is the conviction based on the dominant Constructivist Theory of International Relations that the behavior of states is necessarily constrained by a consensus on international norms," Hickman said. "Some decision-makers in Washington are convinced that Beijing can be talked into accepting the leadership of Washington because it has been working to establish that consensus together with the second-tier space powers."


Ignore the consensus

Hickman said the hitch is that a state like China can ignore the consensus if it possesses the material means and the economic and technological wherewithal to do so. China does, he said.

"The problem with the constructivist theory of international relations is that it tempts decision-makers into engaging in wishful thinking about the future. If China takes the lead, then the other second-tier space powers will begin to follow the Chinese lead," Hickman said.

The last time America was forced to participate in a space race, Hickman said, America managed "a come from behind win" in large part because the U.S. had the advantage of a much larger and more efficient economy than the Soviet Union.

"That is not true this time around. China is not the Soviet Union. The implication is that what we need is a serious 'forward' space policy now or we will lose not only this international competition but also the chance to lead the human endeavor in space," Hickman said.

Hickman then posed this question with a suggested answer: "What should the United States do? Answer: Establish a permanent manned United States base on the moon first."


Last frontier left

"I do think a human moon landing is very much in the cards for China," said Narayani Basu, a research officer with the Southeast Asia Research Program at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in New Delhi, India. "It would seem a natural culmination to the three-phase program that they are working towards completing," she told SPACE.com

All in all, space is the last frontier left, Basu said. "Beijing is aware of its competitors. It has done its research and it is working to become a competitor to be reckoned with as far as space exploration goes. They've improved and built upon the technology already in place so that their space program is leaner and sleeker in terms of budgeting," she said.

Basu said that China is looking for resources on Earth. And the next step is outer space.

Asteroid mining, establishing a permanent manned base on the moon, these are all avenues just waiting to be taken advantage of, Basu added. "The U.S. program is struggling at the moment. Taking a quick lead in matters like these will give Beijing an upper hand in terms of 'geo-strategy' in the future," she said.

International space stage

China's space station is to be in place by 2020, officials have said — perhaps the same year that the International Space Station is going to be scrapped.

"That will undoubtedly give the Chinese an edge on the international space stage," Basu said. "It is also a signal of hope to the Chinese people that China is regaining some of its past glory…that it's still a strong contender in world politics. It is a message that the Party would like to get across, both internationally and domestically, in my opinion, especially given all the bad press about its slowing economy."

Basu said that, practicalities apart, space exploration definitely figures as a theme in Chinese President Xi Jinping's "Chinese dream."

"His vision implies that China will become stronger, has a definite strategic and economic footprint, and a global — and with the culmination of the space program — extraterrestrial — presence. So, in all fields and arenas, it will be a force to reckon with," Basu said.

 

[Winner]

Oh, and terrestrial astronomy is just crossing the boundary of becoming magic:

New Telescope Tech Takes Sharpest Night Sky Photos Ever

The team's "Magellan Adaptive Optics" system, or MagAO for short, uses a magnetic field to float a razor-thin, 2.8-foot-wide (0.9 m) mirror 30 feet (9 m) above the Magellan telescope's main mirror. This small, curved mirror can change its shape at 585 points on its surface 1,000 times every second, researchers said.

"As a result, we can see the visible sky more clearly than ever before," Close said. "It's almost like having a telescope with a 21-foot mirror in space."